Local, state and township officials were present for a ribbon cutting ceremony at Warrington Township Police Department’s new headquarters on Friday, Nov. 13. The building, located at 2330 Lower Barness Road, Warrington, features a high-tech prisoner processing center, a “hoteling” office for collaboration with outside agencies, and an in-house training center.
With assistance from state Sen. Maria Collett (D-12) and Rep. Todd Polinchock (R-144), the township received a $1 million Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program grant for the construction of the police station and a $223,632 Department of Community and Economic Development Multimodal Transportation Fund grant.
The DCED grant allowed for the construction of an access route from the Township Building parking lot directly onto Easton Road through the Homestarr Realty property. This access route allows first responders to get to accident and emergency scenes faster, without having to access Lower Barness Road. The existing police headquarters will be repurposed as township offices.
“The current Administration Building, which houses both the Police Department and Administration Department, was opened in 1993. Since that time, the township’s population has grown significantly, resulting in the need to increase the number of police officers to provide the quality of service our residents expect and deserve,” said township manager Barry Luber. “Over the last 10 years, we have outgrown our current building. This new facility will meet the needs of our Police Department for decades to come.”
“The new building will allow us to meet the technological, training, staffing and specialty unit needs of Warrington Township in the modern era,” said Warrington Township Police Chief Daniel Friel. “It is something the community can be proud of for many years to come.”
Included in the ceremony was the sealing of a time capsule, which was installed behind the building’s foundation stone. The time capsule included “artifacts” from the Warrington Township Police Department’s earliest years, up through the present. Also included was a roll of toilet paper, a mask, hand sanitizer and other pandemic-related items, about which Friel remarked, “Thirty or forty years from now, they can figure out what that was all about!”
